Petticoat Lane
by IndifferentChild
Summary: Prequel focusing on the early life of budding entrepreneur John Hammond in war-time Britain and the founding of IngGen.
1. 1923

1923

Ettrick, 47 miles south of Edinburgh

From on top of the hill, the boy could see for miles across the flatlands. Between the river where he enjoyed rock hunting and the underbrush where he collected insects, there were miles and miles of soggy moor. The vast emptiness of the moors bothered the boy on a level he couldn't quite put into words, leading him to pursue these particular cultivations. When he thought of the endless emptiness that continued for miles over the horizon, the boy felt bored.

Rolling up his socks and britches, he flew fearlessly down the sides of the knoll, arms wind-milling to keep his balance. He was a fair-haired child whose pale face was spotted with freckles that went all the way down his arms. He had always been a frail boy with one leg slightly shorter than the other leading to an awkward gait when he walked. But at ten years old it was not a setback.

After squelching through the mud for an hour, the boy came within sight of a valley house. The stones were old and weather worn and the shingles of the roof would perspire as thick fogs moved in over the hills. A small shed of rotten wood jutted out from the west side of the house. Normally stacked within were tools and other treasures the boy coveted from his departed father. He had often wondered what the tools were used for, as the valley was far from a hospitable agricultural area. Perhaps it had once been a valley teeming with fertile soil. If that was the case, it had to have been long before he was born, the boy reckoned.

A man stood by the shed in overalls and a cap. In either hand he hefted two tin cans, most likely filled with milk from the only cow the family who lived there owned. The boy wasn't exactly sure of there relation – a cousin of some degree to be sure, but there were times he felt a fraternal attachment to the man seven years his senior.

"You lot!" He suddenly called to the pale child. "Your mother's got dinner ready." He said without breaking his stride. The boy hadn't noticed the emptiness of his stomach until it had been drawn attention to. Picking up his stride, the boy came around the side of the valley house.

"John Parker Hammond! Just what have you done to those trousers?"

His mother's stern voice greeted John as he plodded slowly to the table. The boy looked sheepishly at his muddied pants, sticking his finger through a hole that had worked its way into the knee of the fabric. His mother sighed exasperatedly as she handed him his supper. Across the table, his sister, Catrina, was eagerly scarfing down her meal. She was three years younger than John yet his short stature and her feisty attitude gave her an air of an older sister. With chestnut brown hair, dark eyes, and a long, sunken face like her mother's, she was the spitting image of domestic poverty.

"Now where's Jamie gotten to?" Mrs. Hammond sighed, wiping her hands on her apron. John looked up from his supper, "He's coming." He said.

"Just like your father he is. It's no wonder your auntie up and died – having to live with …" Jamie entered the kitchen just then, leaving Mrs. Hammond in a pretty predicament. John wiped the smile from his face and continued slurping his soup. Without a word, his mother brought Jamie his own bowl to tuck into. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence.

John's fascination with Jamie had begun when the older boy had taken up residence with the Hammond's four years prior. John's father was just starting to get sick when John's auntie died, leaving Jamie an orphan. As far as John knew, or had been told, Jamie had no father to speak of – coming into this world one way or another. John concluded that being born was a tricky business and didn't pry into it further – especially considering his mother had been holding a pair of hot prongs when he had asked her about it.

After suppers when the weather was mild, John found himself with Jamie out front of the valley house, looking into the complete blackness and shapelessness of the night. It was rare to see an evening with stars in the sky, as the clouds over Ettrick never seemed to move. John wasn't interested so much in the scenery as he was with Jamie. He was envious of his curly brown hair, deep blue eyes and chiseled features. Sitting beside Jamie, John felt crippled. But he also felt happy.

"What'd you do today Johnny boy?" Jamie would often ask him.

On that particular night, John pulled out his jar of insects he had collected during the day. They were mostly beetles, flies, and caterpillars that he had pulled up from under rocks and overturned logs, but John found a new one almost every day and enjoyed sketching them in his notebook on rainier days. "No rocks today then?" Jamie inquired.

John pressed his lips together and dug deeper into his pockets, eventually retrieving a rock, glazed with a shiny substance that gave it a glossy white look. Jamie smiled and took it from him, turning it over in his hands a few times. He gave a small chuckle, "This isn't a rock you know."

"Is so." John retorted.

"No … it's just tree sap." Jamie licked it. John's eyes widened in shock and Jamie ribbed him with his elbow, a smile plastered across his face. "Go on, it's sweet." John took the sap apprehensively. He should have known it wasn't really a rock. Sniffing it beforehand, John tasted his find.

"It's good." He admitted, before handing it back to Jamie.

"Thanks Johnny boy, but I don't need it." Jamie tossed the piece of sap between his two hands, before suddenly making it disappear.

"Teach me how to do that!" John demanded.

Jamie shrugged. "It's magic Johnny-boy. I can't tell you how it's done."

John pounded the older boy with a balled fist, battering him slowly to the ground. Jamie easily recovered, picking up John in one arm and pinching his nose. "Owch! Jamie that hurts!" John piped. When Jamie pulled his hand away, there in his calloused palm was the tree sap. Jamie chuckled, gave John another playful shove and went inside.

When John returned to school a week later, he was selling pieces of tree sap for a penny each.


	2. 1923 - II

School in Ettrick was held in the parish church. As such, John had been able to make a name for himself as the peddler of tree sap to schoolchildren of all ages in and around the village. He fancied himself as a sort of pied piper to the rest of the students – not particularly physically impressive, but cunning and calculating. The teachers disliked him at first, as other students seemed to pay more attention to John than they did their studies. But through the consistent effort he made inside and out of the classroom, they eventually turned a blind eye to John's ventures.

Every day, John would shuffle home with his two mason jars – one filled with pennies, and the other empty and sticky. His rattling often spooked the grazing sheep he passed on his way back to the valley house. The sheep learned to give him a wide berth. 'Ooh here comes that Johnny-boy with his jar full of pennies, better move out of the way' John fancied the sheep warbling to each other as he hobbled by.

The real obstacle was getting inside the house without his mother hearing the jingling money in his pocket. It was her custom to nitpick John's appearance upon his return home. If it wasn't his clothes that were dirty, it was his posture, his attitude, his sour face – he wasn't ever what his mother deemed 'perfect. '

John's room, shared with Catrina, was in the loft just above the kitchen. Only accessible by a ladder, John took extra care to ascend slowly lest the sounds of coin in his pocket should betray his capitalistic enterprise. Once in the safety of the loft, which his mother refused to visit on account of the ladder, John would count his earnings of the day – which was notably less and less as his resources slowly ran dry. There were only so many trees to be picked at in the small forest. However, with today's profits, John totaled a sum of seven pounds sterling. Despite his hoarded pennies, the boy wasn't after anything in particular. There was a simple joy that swelled his chest with pride to look upon his jars of wealth. He liked that. But more so, he enjoyed the effect he was had on the other children. His jar of sap was famous, and the looks of excitement on the faces of his patrons as he handed out the fragments were an unrivalled source of happiness. He wouldn't let his mother take it away from him.

Perhaps it was his leg, or his fraternizing with Jamie, or his above average performance in school, but it seemed to John that his mother resented him. He would often speak with Jamie about this.

"If she thinks you're a cripple then she's a screwball." Jamie would say, "You got more brains than any of the sheep herders in this town I'll tell you that. More 'an me even."

"But you told me about the sap." John replied.

"Yeah but you made something out of it. You have a head on your shoulder Johnny-boy."

As things stood, John was fast running out of material. The trees near Ettrick Water were the healthiest and gave off the sweetest sap. But as the weather grew colder, the sap became hard and impossibly stuck to the tree bark. Washing his jar out in the river, John proceeded with his collecting. At times, it became difficult not to be distracted by the myriad of bugs that made their homes in the soggy lowlands, but he stuck dutifully to his task and kept mining.

Using a spoon, John used his weight as leverage to pull the sap from the tree. With the force, the sap would lift free and he would pluck it from the tree with his fingers. He turned it over in his hands a few times. He frowned as he looked upon his find – there was a bug stuck in the sap. No one would want to eat that. He tossed it over his shoulder with a sigh.

"Is that why my brother is sick?"

John whirled around at the voice. An older boy stood scowling, his hands in his pockets. Behind him were two other boys. "What?" John asked.

"My brother." The boy repeated, "He's been buying that boggin' crap from you every week and now he's sick. And I think it's cause you don't know what a dirty bug looks like." John got to his feet, brushing the mud from his legs.

"Now listen. I make sure that my sap is free of all –" The older boy advanced on John and yanked him by the collar of his jacket.

"If I were you, I'd stop your little candy store fantasy and stay with yer mum like the cripple you are." Before John could react, he found himself waist deep in mud and water with a bloody nose, his hat in the river, and his mason jars smashed.

John stopped selling sap after that.


	3. 1929

As John grew older, the village of Ettrick grew smaller. That was simple physics. But John was unprepared for just how small it seemed to be getting. He knew Jamie felt the same way. The older boy was working the coalmines at the time, and John barely had a moment to catch up with him between his studies and Jamie's work, but when their schedules were fortunate, they would meet in town at one tavern or another and swap stories.

The valley house had become merely a place where John could rest his head. It wasn't home anymore. His mother had become touched in the head he suspected, often talking of anti-monarchy conspiracies or an invasion of Irish gypsies or something of the sort. And of course whenever she saw Jamie she'd fly into a raging fit, sometimes hurling silverware at him. And then there was John, whom she always saw fit to curse out about one thing or another. Strangely she only threw wooden utensils at him. Catrina had turned into a meek girl of thirteen and was constantly under Mrs. Hammond's watchful eye. She refused to let her attend school and instead instructed her on "feminine matters" of which John was (in Mrs. Hammond's words) "too damn snotty" to know about.

"Critey Johnny-boy. When did you get old enough to drink?" Jamie asked one night, as John smiled in to his mug. Being treated as a man instead of a boy felt like an accomplishment. John had never thought about growing up. It had just happened. "How's school going?" Jamie asked. "I heard you won some kind of award or … honourary mention or something like that."

"Just a small merit." John replied, "I penned up a wee schematic for a furnace to heat the church and suddenly I'm Saint John."

"You built a furnace?"

"Well … in my head anyways."

"In your head?"

John nodded sheepishly. "How's work?"

"Never mind me lad, you probably got more to talk about than me. I'm just playing in dirt all day. That's not living." Jamie laughed and nursed his drink. "Have you talked to your mum?"

"She only ever talks _at_ me now. Nothing important. Just more about being a lazy cripple with a rotten cousin-brother."

Jamie groaned. "You're too good for all this Johnny-boy. You need to get out of here. Go to London – that's where people with your brains go anyways. You'd fit right in with those university blokes. You look the type anyways."

John had never given the outside world much thought. It was only something he had imagined as a child as he played by himself amongst the hills. "I should really be taking care of mum." He said, "Don't worry about it, I'll just –"

"Build furnaces your whole life?" Jamie finished. "Listen, your mum's sick – and you live with her much longer she's gonna make you sick. You can't fix her Johnny-boy. Don't let that head of yours go to waste eh? People like you build railroads, cities, factories – you could create things that people can see, use, and _touch_! You could really change the world John! You could do that!" Jamie said excitedly. "Don't you ever want to get out of this sheep-hole?"

John looked into his mug.

"I tell you, I wanna get out of his sheep-hole alright." Jamie continued. "I been working myself to the bones to get the money. And when I do I'm going to South America … Africa! Places where you're not just surviving and scraping the skin off of life's nose. Cause that's what we're doing John … just scraping the skin."

The conversation had stirred something in John – and it had unsettled him. He felt an empty space inside of him, and no matter how many furnaces he built or telephone wires he fixed, nothing seemed to fill it. It was an insatiable hunger for the unnamable.

True to his word, as soon as Jamie had earned enough money from the coal mine, he uprooted himself and set sail for Africa a few months later. John had never been lonelier. He had felt strong with Jamie walking next to him, as if the older boy added an extra inch to his leg. But now that it was just him, he felt his limp was more pronounced, he felt the eyes of staring bystanders, he felt _weaker_. John gradually learned to walk faster, often going straight home after his classes were finished. He buried himself in his books and studies, speaking little to anyone of consequence.

More and more, John found himself more attracted to newspapers, as the open world was growing very exciting and alluring to him. Ettrick was closing in on him too quickly – his mother, the valley house, and the shoddy little village. He didn't want to die here amongst sheep farmers and shit shovelers. He wanted to get back to that boy selling tree sap, that boy who had changed the dynamic of the entire village with one simple idea, one action.

In the quiet of his loft, he re-counted the coins in his mason jars. He hadn't used much in the past six years, but all the same there was only enough for a train out of Edinburgh to say nothing of attending school in London. Clapping the lid back on the jar, John sighed and eased back to the floor, settling his head on his pillow.

It was a start.


	4. 1930

John's final year of school ended uneventfully. With Jamie gone and his mother in poor health, the load had fallen to John and Catrina to keep the family afloat. Putting aside the many projects on his mind over the years, John began cycling to the nearby town of Selkirk to pick up an odd job or another. It was a two-hour journey one way, but it gave John the solitude he so desperately needed to blueprint his ideas. When he found the time, he would build miniatures of his ideas with whatever he found on the roads. He had constructed miniature motorcars, clocks, even a miniature of the valley house. However pleasant this quiet hobby was, it didn't completely fulfill him.

Post cards would arrive every few weeks from Jamie from one country or another. The first was from Kenya, showing two dark-skinned women in colourful cloth, cradling their infants. The next came from South America depicting a farmer harvesting wheat while another prodded the oxen of the harvester onwards. The machines were draped in a myriad of colourful flags. In his writings, Jamie would say he was always working in touring companies – catering to wealthy aristocrats wanting to experience "the native way of life." John had to admit that it was a good idea. However, with the world spiraling deeper into a global depression, fewer folk were keen on spending the money it seemed, and Jamie began to write less and less.

Selkirk was the town where the sheepherders congregated to sell their woolen products. The town also had quite the affinity for horse racing, John noted. Usually John was able to earn a day's wage by running deliveries for one farmer or another on his bike. It was on one of his deliveries that he was almost struck down by a speeding truck. The driver blew his horn incessantly as he crept up behind John, who was peddling on his ramshackle bicycle. Pulling to the side of the road, John caught his breath and let the driver pass. What he saw made his jaw hang. At first he had thought the cargo was an exceptionally tall bale of grain blowing in the wind, but it was most definitely a staggering African giraffe. The animal was curiously extending its neck in every direction, trying to gauge where precisely it was.

The truck continued through the town, with John following its every move on his bicycle. It eventually stopped a few kilometers up the road, allowing John to hop off his bike and hobble over for a closer look. Craning his neck, John stared straight up the neck of the great beast, which extended a long, blue tongue and snorted obscenely. As he drew closer, his attention moved to the other crates piled into the van, from which he could hear various grunts and growls.

"Hey lad! Mind yourself! I got man-eaters in there!" A fellow no taller than John jumped spryly out of the truck's cab. "African lions, hippopottomai, and enough snakes to make ol' Saint Paddy rolls in his grave." The man gave a chuckle and blew his nose into his sleeve while adjusting his overalls.

"What are you doing with them?" John asked, taking a step back from the nearest crate.

"These here are Professor Bounder's little ones. And that's me, professor of all things extraordinary." The man stuck out his hand to John. "Pleasure, lad." John took it warily.

"Professor … Bounder …" John repeated.

"Uh-oh, we got a moron here." The man sighed, "Well … hop in son you'll fit right in." John looked over his shoulder, expecting the man to be addressing somebody else.

"Well that's why you're here ain't you? All you little country bumpkins want to hop on the circus wagon right? Send a penny home to ma and pa?"

"A job?" John asked hopefully.

"Yes a job! Get in you idiot." The man barked.

It had all happened so fast that John didn't quite know what to think. But in the space of four minutes he found himself sitting adjacent to a rather confused looking flock of flamingos and three men of extremely small stature who didn't seem to speak English. Managing a smile somehow or another for a short twenty minute ride, John could only figure that he had somehow joined the circus.

Professor Bounder's Merry Company was (according to Bounder) the most famous show north of London. John had never heard of them, but Bounder seemed to blame that fact on John's "country stupidity." It was a small act comprising of a lion, a giraffe and a rather sick and fat hippopotamus. The snakes and flamingos made small appearances around town for a fee. On slower days John was allowed to be in charge, allowing the snakes to maneuver up and down his body. Bounder had assured him that the snakes were always well fed beforehand and even if they weren't, would have no interest in eating the scrawny boy. In addition to the animals, the Slover brothers were Hungarian dwarves that would perform alongside the animals every night, in addition to various acrobatic stunts. One brother would ride the hippo while the other ran in front banging cymbals together. John had to admit it was comical.

However the main task that fell to John was lighting. It became something that gave him a surprising amount of enjoyment. He would be hidden away on show-nights in various corners and elevations of the ring, and with a simple flick of a switch, he commanded the audience's attention and imagination to wherever he pleased. From his hidden vantage points, he observed the enthralled and hypnotized faces as they gazed upon one of the Slover's on the high wire or a parade of animals galloping around the ring with Bounder in the middle. All with a simple flick of a rudimentary electrical switch, he inspired their imaginations. Without John, there would only be darkness. The idea had a profound affect on him.

For one month John rigged the spotlights at Bounder's before the troupe set off for Dublin. The Professor had begged John to accompany him – a very enticing offer too – however Jamie's words at the pub and in his postcards were steering John on a different path. He was done with surviving and was going to start living – and Ettrick was no place for that. He told Catrina of this a few days after Bounder had left.

"You have to look after her Cate." He told her.

"I don't give a toss about her! She's mental John!"

"She's our mother."

"She's still mental!" John would be lying if he disagreed with her.

"Once I make some money, I'll bring the both of you to London. I promise.

"Why can't you bring the both of us now? I could work too. We could do it." Catrina insisted. Her optimism and persistence were admirable, and there were times John saw a little bit of himself in her.

"It's too much. The train alone is fifty pence each. Trust me I know how these things work." John explained.

When John announced his intention to his mother, she simply shrugged her shoulders and said, "We'll get along just grand, Catrina and I. Better even." John hadn't been expecting much more. He had asked them to see him off in Edinburgh, to which they both agreed – his mother albeit exasperatedly.

On the morning of John's departure, a fog was rolling in. _Typical_. John thought to himself. He forced himself to enjoy the lowland fog one more time before he would never see it again. His insides were juggling up and down with thoughts of London and its vast wealth of opportunities. He did his best to walk as straight as he could manage as he hauled his luggage down the corridor to his compartment.

John hadn't even reached his seat before the train lurched and slowly began its way out of the station. John quickened his pace to get to a window – desperately wanting to see Catrina's face one last time before he left. He struggled with the pane before being able to stick his head out. Catrina with her mother's arms around her shoulders, stared blankly ahead in a three-hundred yard gaze. Her mouth was a scowl and her eyebrows were furrowed as if trying to keep herself from crying. John waved to them – but neither waved back.


End file.
